Click on the English word to see information and examples of that word in use (you probably won’t be able to understand the grammar within the sentences at this point, but it is good to see as you progress through your learning).

A PDF file neatly presenting these words and extra information can be found here.

Common Usages:
마음 대로 = as one wishes
마음에 들다 = to like something (literally, for something to go into one’s heart)
마음이 변하다 = to change one’s mind
마음에 걸리다 = to feel guilty about something (for something to be caught in one’s heart)
마음을 정하다 = to make up one’s mind

Examples:
그 사람의 마음은 따뜻해요 = That person has a warm heart그것을 마음대로 하세요 = Do that as you wish저는 저 그림이 마음에 들어요 = I like that picture

This is not used when you “bring” a person somewhere. Instead, the word “데려오다” is used

가져오다 often translates to “to bring” and 가져가다 often translates to “to take.” However, the translation of “to bring” could work for both 가져오다 and 가져가다.

가지다 means “to possess” and “오다” and “가다” mean “to come” and “to go” respectively. Deciding to use 가져오다 or 가져가다 depends on the point of reference of the acting agent in the sentence to the speaker. Specifically, whether the acting agent is coming or going to the location in question.

Imagine you have money at your house, and you will go to your friend’s house later to give it to him. Therefore, you will have to “bring” or “take” (same meaning) that money with you when you head over there. If you are currently at your house and are talking to your friend about what you will do, you should use the word “가져가다” because you are going to your friend’s house while in possession of the money (저는 돈을 가져갈 거예요). In this example, 가져가다 is used and the best English translation would be “I will bring the money.”

However, imagine you have already arrived at your friend’s house with the money. You can use the word “가져오다” because you came to your friend’s house while in possession of the money (저는 돈을 가져왔어요). In this example, 가져오다 is used and the best English translation would be “I brought the money.”

People would read those two examples and think “Oh, so if it is something happening in the future – I should use 가져가다 and if it is something happening in the past, I should use 가져오다.”

No. It has nothing to do with the tense of the sentence. It has everything to do with the point of reference of the acting agent of the sentence to the speaker.

For example, imagine you are at your house with the money. If your friend wants to tell you to “bring the money,” he should use the word “가져오다” because you are coming (not going) to him. To his reference, you are “coming.” In this case, 가져오다 should be used.

This is not used when you “take” a person somewhere. Instead, the word “데려가다” is used

가져오다 often translates to “to bring” and 가져가다 often translates to “to take.” However, the translation of “to bring” could work for both 가져오다 and 가져가다.

가지다 means “to possess” and “오다” and “가다” mean “to come” and “to go” respectively. Deciding to use 가져오다 or 가져가다 depends on the point of reference of the acting agent in the sentence to the speaker. Specifically, whether the acting agent is coming or going to the location in question.

Imagine you have money at your house, and you will go to your friend’s house later to give it to him. Therefore, you will have to “bring” or “take” (same meaning) that money with you when you head over there. If you are currently at your house and are talking to your friend about what you will do, you should use the word “가져가다” because you are going to your friend’s house while in possession of the money (저는 돈을 가져갈 거예요). In this example, 가져가다 is used and the best English translation would be “I will bring the money.”

However, imagine you have already arrived at your friend’s house with the money. You can use the word “가져오다” because you came to your friend’s house while in possession of the money (저는 돈을 가져왔어요). In this example, 가져오다 is used and the best English translation would be “I brought the money.”

People would read those two examples and think “Oh, so if it is something happening in the future – I should use 가져가다 and if it is something happening in the past, I should use 가져오다.”

No. It has nothing to do with the tense of the sentence. It has everything to do with the point of reference of the acting agent of the sentence to the speaker.

For example, imagine you are at your house with the money. If your friend wants to tell you to “bring the money,” he should use the word “가져오다” because you are coming (not going) to him. To his reference, you are “coming.” In this case, 가져오다 should be used.

Examples:
얼마나 많은 돈을 가져갈거예요? = How much money will you bring/take?
날씨가 너무 더울 것이기 때문에 반바지를 가져갈거예요 = I am going to bring/take shorts because the weather will be hot

Notes: A compound verb made up of “돌다” and “가다.” If you are currently in a place and are talking about returning to another place. For example, if you are from Canada but currently in Korea and talking about returning to Canada (i.e. going back to Canada), you should use this word instead of “돌아오다.”

Common Usages:
돌아가시다 = A formal way to say somebody has “passed away” (the honorific ~(으)시 is introduced in Lesson 39)

Examples:
저는 언젠가 고향에 돌아가고 싶어요 = I want to go back to my hometown some day저는 9월1일에 캐나다에 돌아갈거예요 = I will go back to Canada on September 1st
무슨 일이 벌어지든지 간에 제가 집에 돌아가야 돼요 = Regardless of what happens, I need to go back/return home

Notes: A compound verb made up of “돌다” and “오다.” If you are currently in a place and are talking about returning to the same place. For example, if you are from Canada talking about returning to Canada (i.e. coming back to Canada), you should use this word instead of “돌아가다.”

Examples:
캐나다에 언제 돌아올거예요? = When are you comingback to Canada?
학생들은 다음 주에 학교에 돌아와요 = The students return to school next week
경찰관들은 경찰서에 돌아왔어요 = The police officers returned to the police station
거기에 가서 돈을 갖고 돌아오세요! = Go over there, get the money and then come back!
모든 선생님들은 지금 회의 중이니 20분 후에 돌아오면 돼= All the teachers are in a meeting now, so come back in 20 minutes

Examples:
그녀는 아직 결혼하지 않았어요 = She still hasn’t gotten married yet
그 부부는 50년 전에 결혼했어요 = That couple got married 50 years ago
우리는 올해 결혼하고 싶어요 = We want to get married this year
우리는 결혼식의 날짜를 아직 안 정했어요 = We still haven’t set a date for the wedding

Example:
그는 어려운 삶을 경험했어요 = He experienced a difficult life
그 학교에서 일한 것은 좋은 경험이었어요 = Working at that school was good experience제가 여기서 일하고 싶은 이유는 새로운 경험을 하고 싶기 때문이에요 = The reason I want to work here is because I want to have a new experience

Notes: The function of “또 다르다” is hard to explain, but it is easier to explain (and understand) if you think of it as two separate words (which it actually is). It is a combination of the adjective “다르다” and the adverb “또”, which is used when something happens again.

“또 다르다” is used when one particular thing has already been described, and you are explaining another thing. For example, imagine you are sitting in a meeting with your coworkers discussing potential problems for a plan. People are all discussing the problems they see, and you can point out:

또 다른 문제는 그것이 비싸요 = Another problem is it (that thing) is expensive

In this same respect, you can say the following sentence, and although the translation in English is similar, try to understand the difference in adding “또”:

저는 또 다른 영화를 봤어요 = I saw ANother movie
In this, maybe the person saw one movie, and then again saw a different movie.

속 is more commonly used when, if you enter something, the place will be filled with stuff and is not “empty”. Conversely, “안” would be more commonly used when, if you enter something, the place is basically empty.

For example, if you enter water or if you enter your body. In both cases, “속” would be used to refer to the inside of a body, or the inside of water. If you enter your body, it is filled with stuff, and if you enter the water, it is still all water.

The opposite is if you are talking about a room, or a building. You can go into those places and it is relatively empty.

This lesson will have a very different feel than all the previous lessons you have learned. Most of the words you have learned so far can be understood and used in sentences without much thought or hesitation. For example, if you knew how to say this:
저는 한국어를 배웠어요 = I learned Korean

And then subsequently learned “공부하다” (to study), it would be easy to figure out that you could also say:
저는 한국어를 공부했어요 = I studied Korean.

However, there are many words that you would not be able to pick up instinctively because they follow different rules or patterns. In this lesson, I want to teach you about some of these words. I also want to use this lesson as a means to teach you some small concepts in Korean that you should know. These concepts are important, but are too small to have an entire lesson dedicated to that one concept. So, I have included them in this “miscellaneous” lesson:

More about 좋다/싫다 to 좋아하다/싫어하다

I have told you a few times that in most words ending in 하다, you can remove the ~하다 and the remaining word then becomes a noun of that verb. For example:

말 = speech/words/the thing that you say
말하다 = to speak

주문 = an order
주문하다 = to order

결혼 = marriage
결혼하다 = to marry

존경 = respect
존경하다 = to respect

This cannot be done with 좋아하다 and 싫어하다. That is:

좋아 is not a noun that means “likeness” (or whatever), and
싫어 is not a noun that means “dis-likeness “(or whatever)

Note, however that 좋아 and 싫어 can be found in sentences, but only as conjugated forms of 좋다/싫다 and not as the noun form of 좋아하다 and 싫어하다. You learned in previous lessons that 좋다 and 싫다 are adjectives. As adjectives, they can describe an upcoming noun or predicate a sentence. For example:

Just a quick note. Only in rare cases would you actually say ‘김치는 좋아요.’ In most cases if you wanted to describe 김치 by saying it was good, you would use the word 맛있다 instead. You would only really use this sentence if you/somebody was talking about something bad (like maybe something bad for your health), and then you could say “… is bad, but Kimchi is good.” Nonetheless, it is grammatically correct, and I am specifically using this sentence to make a point that you will understand later in the lesson.

좋아하다 is made by adding ~아/어하다 to the stem of 좋다. This changes 좋다 from an adjective (good) to a verb (to like). Likewise,

싫어하다 is made by adding ~아/어하다 to the stem of 싫다. This changes 싫다 from an adjective (not good) to a verb (to dislike).

It would be good to note that you can add ~아어하다 with some other adjectives as well. 좋다 and 싫다 are the most common (and the most important) to worry about right now, but other common examples are:

부끄럽다 = shy (this is an adjective)
부끄러워하다 = shy (this is a verb)

부럽다 = envious (this is an adjective)
부러워하다 = envious (this is a verb)

Aside from knowing that one is a verb and one is an adjective, you don’t need to worry about these other words right now. I talk more about this concept and how they are used differently, but not until much later in Lesson 105. For now, let’s just focus on 좋아하다 and 싫어하다.

As a verb, 좋아하다 can be used to indicate that one “likes” something. For example:

One of the basic fundamentals of grammar (not just Korean grammar) is that an adjective cannot act on an object. This means in Korean you can never have a sentence predicated by an adjective that is acting on a word with the object particle ~를/을. This means that you cannot say this:

저는 좋은 김치를 먹었어요 = I ate good kimchiAn object being described by an adjective predicated by a verb

That being said, sometimes, Korean people actually DO make sentences that are predicated by adjectives and also have an “object.” Remember though, you cannot (100% cannot) use an adjective to act on an object. So how do Korean people say this? They do so by adding ~이/가 to the object instead of ~을/를. This technically makes the grammar within the sentence correct because there is not an adjective acting on an object. Take a look at the example:

What I am trying to get at here – is that often times in Korean there is an adjective or passive verb that acts on objects. However, these adjective/passive verbs must (of course) always be treated as an adjective or passive verb.

Adjectives and passive verbs can never act on objects, so instead of using ~를/을 in these situations, you have to use ~이/가. Another example where this is commonly done is with 그립다:

그립다 = this word is translated as “to miss,” but is usually used when talking about missing a non-person (it is sometimes used to say that you miss a person, but we will talk about how to say you miss a person in Lesson 17).

그립다 is an adjective in Korean (because it actually describes the feeling rather than an action verb). This means that if you want to say “I miss Korean food” you cannot say:

You also saw this same phenomenon in the previous lesson with passive verbs. Remember, you cannot have a passive verb act on an object. Therefore, we saw the following types of examples in the previous lesson:

Both of these usages are overarching situations that most of the usages of 들다 can fit into. The difficulty with 들다 is, because it can be used in so many different ways, it is often hard to come up with a translation that fits all possible situations. Let me show you three examples of how 들다 can be used under the overarching situation of “to enter/go into something/somewhere.”

1) First, I wanted to introduce how 들다 can be used. With a general understanding of the two overarching usages presented here (along with the specific situations outlined in the example sentences), you should be able to tackle most usages of 들다 as you continue to study more advanced sentences.

2) This is really crucial to your development of Korean and how it relates to the meanings you have of words from your understanding of English. You have to realize that Korean and English are fundamentally different, and it is very difficult to translate sentences sometimes. In cases like these, you should try not to translate the meaning of a word directly into a specific definition. Rather, you should be open to the fact that it can have many meanings depending on the context.

For example, imagine if you knew the following words and their definitions:

Would you be able to understand its meaning if I had not explained it to you earlier? Many learners of Korean might read that and say “Well, it looks like that person has a picture entering his heart/mind… but I’m not quite sure what that means.”

This is the first of many times where I will encourage you to not translate/understand sentences literally. Instead, try to understand what the meaning of a sentence could be based on your understanding of the words within it. For example, if you come across the word “들다” in your studies, realize that it can have many usages – and just because it doesn’t immediately look like it will translate to “enter” or “carry,” an open mind might allow you to see things in different ways.

3) I specifically wanted to teach you the meaning of 들다 because it is commonly used in compound words, which I will talk about in the next section.

.

.

Korean Compound Verbs

You will notice (or may have already noticed) that many Korean verbs are made by combining two verbs together. This is usually done by adding one verb to the stem of the other, along with ~아/어. When this happens, the meanings of both of the words form to make one word. For example:

가져오다 often translates to “to bring” and 가져가다 often translates to “to take.” However, the translation of “to bring” could work for both 가져오다 and 가져가다.

가지다 means “to possess” and “오다” and “가다” mean “to come” and “to go” respectively. Deciding to use 가져오다 or 가져가다 depends on the point of reference of the acting agent in the sentence to the speaker. Specifically, whether the acting agent is coming or going to the location in question.

Imagine you have money at your house, and you will go to your friend’s house later to give it to him. Therefore, you will have to “bring” or “take” (same meaning) that money with you when you head over there. If you are currently at your house and are talking to your friend about what you will do, you should use the word “가져가다” because you are going to your friend’s house while in possession of the money (저는 돈을 가져갈 거예요). In this example, 가져가다 is used and the best English translation would be “I will bring the money.”

However, imagine you have already arrived at your friend’s house with the money. You can use the word “가져오다” because you came to your friend’s house while in possession of the money (저는 돈을 가져왔어요). In this example, 가져오다 is used and the best English translation would be “I brought the money.”

People would read those two examples and think “Oh, so if it is something happening in the future – I should use 가져가다 and if it is something happening in the past, I should use 가져오다.”

No. It has nothing to do with the tense of the sentence. It has everything to do with the point of reference of the acting agent of the sentence to the speaker.

For example, imagine you are at your house with the money. If your friend wants to tell you to “bring the money,” he should use the word “가져오다” because you are coming (not going) to him. To his reference, you are “coming.” In this case, 가져오다 should be used.

You will come across many of these words when you are leaning how to speak Korean. It is not something terribly difficult, but is something that you should be aware of (it helps to understand the word if you realize that it is made up of two separate words).

Another word that you will see commonly in these compound words is “돌다”:

That’s good enough for now, but you will continue to see these as you progress through your studies.

Different/Similar/Same in Korean (다르다/비슷하다/같다)

Three words that you have learned in previous lessons are:

다르다 = different
비슷하다 = similar
같다 = same

Using these words isn’t as straight forward as it would seem, so I wanted to spend some time teaching you how to deal with them. Of course, in simple sentences, they can be used just like any other adjectives. For example:

The sentence above sounds unnatural in Korean. Although “같다” translates to “the same,” in most cases (especially in cases like this where nothing is being compared), it is more natural to use the word “똑같다,” which usually translates to “exactly the same.”

The ability of ~와/과/랑/이랑/하고 to be used in all of these cases creates confusion for Korean people when they learn English. You will often hear mistakes from Korean people like:

“This school is the same to our school”

Notice in the sentence above that the particle ~와/과/랑/이랑/하고 is used to denote that something is different from, similar to, or the same as something else. In theory, you could change the order of the sentences (to make the sentence structure similar to what you learned in Lesson 13) to indicate that two things (this and that) are different, similar or the same. For example:

As you can see with the English translation – this doesn’t create any difference in meaning. It merely changes the wording of the sentences and the function of the particles slightly.

I talk about the usage of 같다 later in Lessons 35 and 36. Specifically, in Lesson 36 I talk about how 같다 is more commonly used to say “something is like something.” I don’t want to get into this too much in this lesson, because the purpose of this section was for me to introduce you to the grammar within these sentences so you could apply it to what I am about to introduce next.

This structure is very complex and is an introduction to describing nouns with phrases instead of simply using one adjective. In Lesson 26, you will learn more about how to describe nouns with things other than simple adjectives – such as verbs and complex phrases.

The meaning of “different” in English has more than one nuance, which are possessed by “다르다” as well. Although the meaning of “different” in the two sentences below is similar, try to see that they are slightly different:

I am different than him
I saw a different movie

The first one describes that something is not the same as something else

The second one has a meaning similar to “other” or “another”, where (in this case), the person did not see the movie that was originally planned, but instead saw “another” or a “different” movie.

“또 다르다” usually translates to “another,” while “다르다” translates to “other.” However, in the example above, replacing “another” with “other” makes it sound weird.

The function of “또 다르다” is hard to explain, but it is easier to explain (and understand) if you think of it as two separate words (which it actually is). It is a combination of the adjective “다르다” and the adverb “또”, which is used when something happens again.

“또 다르다” is used when one particular thing has already been described, and you are explaining another thing. For example, imagine you are sitting in a meeting with your coworkers discussing potential problems for a plan. People are all discussing the problems they see, and you can point out:

In this same respect, you can say the following sentence, and although the translation in English is similar, try to understand the difference in adding “또”:

저는 또 다른 영화를 봤어요 = I saw ANother movie
In this, maybe the person saw one movie, and then again saw a different movie.

Words that are the same but have different meanings (Korean Homonyms)

This may be something that is obvious when learning any language, but I wanted to point it out. In Korean, there are a lot of words that have more than one meaning. It is like this in English as well, but most people never notice it until they stop to think about how many there actually are. Whenever there is a word with many meanings in Korean, these different meanings will always have a separate entry in our vocabulary lists (not necessarily in the same lesson, however). An example of this is “쓰다”:

쓰다 = to write
쓰다 = to use
쓰다 = to wear a hat

Each of these words has had a separate entry in our vocabulary lists. However, when a word has many meanings, but most of those meanings can be combined into a few ‘umbrella term’ meanings – only those ‘umbrella term’ meanings will be shown. A good example we talked about earlier is 들다. 들다 has so many meanings, but most of which can be grouped into 3 or 4 groups.

걸리다 = to “take” a certain amount of time
This is a very useful form that we will talk about in greater detail in a later lesson. You can use this to indicate how long it takes to get from one place to another:

Notice however, that even though each of these has a very different meaning in English (to be hanging, to be caught, to take a certain amount of time) they are actually pretty similar. When a picture is ‘hanging’ on the wall, technically it is ‘stuck/trapped’ on the wall. Similarly, if you go from Incheon to Seoul, the time it takes (2 hours) is ‘stuck/trapped.’ Haha, No? Well, that’s just the way I explained it to myself when I first learned some of these words.

Try to think outside of the English box. One word in Korean is often used to represent many words in English. Usually these words aren’t actually very different, but the different translations lead us to believe that they are in fact very different. Read these sentences again and see if you can understand them this way:

The picture is caught on the wall
I was caught over the line
2 hours are caught to get from Seoul to Incheon

Obviously not natural in English – but you can probably understand what these sentences mean.

My point? Just because it looks like a word has many meanings –doesn’t necessarily mean that those meanings are vastly different from each other. Think about the example from earlier in this lesson (들다) one more time. 들다 has many meanings – but most of which can be grouped into only 2 or 3 different meanings. Always keep this in mind.

Being Sick in Korea

One of the things people often try to learn first when learning a new language is how to express themselves in the event that they have to go to the doctor. This is something that wouldn’t fit into any specific lesson, so I want to cover it here:

You already know the word 아프다, which you can use to indicate that you are sick OR sore in some place. In English “sore” and “sick” mean slightly different things. Because of this, Korean people (who are learning English) often mistakenly say “My arm is sick.” Also note that 아프다 is an adjective… and for some reason ‘이/가’ are used instead of 는/은when creating sentences about a place on your body:

Also, you can use the word 걸리다 to indicate that you have some sort of disease/sickness. You learned a little bit about 걸리다 in the previous section. This usage of 걸리다 essentially has the same meaning that was described in all the other examples of걸리다 (I am caught in a sickness). Korean people use this in the following way:

저는 감기에 걸렸어요 = I caught a cold/I have a cold저는 독감에 걸렸어요 = I caught the flu/I have the fluNotice how “에” is used in these sentences due to 걸리다 having the nuance of being stuck IN something

Also note that even though you have a cold in the present tense, Korean people use the past “걸렸다” to express that they currently have a cold.

기침 (a cough) and 재채기 (a sneeze), although not originally nouns of Chinese origin, are both nouns where you can add 하다 to get the respective verb form (to cough and to sneeze). For example:

저의 아들은 시끄럽게 기침했어요 = My son coughed loudly(Probably more naturally translated to “My son was coughing loudly.” Korean people don’t really distinguish between simple and progressive past tenses as much as we do in English. You will learn about the progressive tense in Lesson 18.)

Wow that’s a long lesson. I have to apologize for writing these lessons so long. This lesson could have easily been broken into 2, 3 or even 4 separate lessons, but I chose against doing it that way. When I was first learning Korean, I wanted to plow through material as fast as I possibly could – and I guess that is coming out as I am writing these lessons as well.